Piara Waters chase ends in sus­pended sen­tence

SUS­PENDED PRISON SEN­TENCE FOR HIS SPEED PUR­SUIT

A HARRISDALE man has been given a six-month sus­pended prison sen­tence for lead­ing po­lice on a high speed chase through Piara Waters and Harrisdale.

Wayne Ray­mond Moody drove er­rat­i­cally on the wrong side of Nichol­son Road at speed, then through bush­land, un­til he was tracked by a po­lice he­li­copter through Harrisdale to his home.

Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Josh Woon said at 3.10pm on June 15, Moody was driv­ing his mo­tor­cy­cle along Nichol­son Road in Piara Waters when he en­coun­tered a marked po­lice car.

Mr Woon said the po­lice car flashed its lights but the mo­tor­cy­cle ac­cel­er­ated away.

Moody pleaded guilty to fail­ing to com­ply with a di­rec­tion to stop, driv­ing while dis­qual­i­fied and reck­less driv­ing at Ar­madale Mag­is­trates Court last Tues­day.

His de­fence lawyer said the ini­tial in­ter­ac­tion with po­lice lasted for just a few sec­onds, with the car’s lights turned on, then off. She said there were no other road users around and Po­lair had made com­ments that they could not as­cer­tain Moody’s speed from their po­si­tion.

She said the of­fence was on the lower end of the scale.

Mag­is­trate Nicholas Lem­mon said this could have been the case, but Moody also had a “ter­ri­ble driv­ing his­tory”.

He went on to say the act was a brief but ex­tremely dan­ger­ous thing to do, made worse by Moody’s pre­vi­ous two con­vic­tions for reck­less driv­ing, four for driv­ing while dis­qual­i­fied, and two con­vic­tions over 10 years ago for steal­ing a mo­tor ve­hi­cle, for which the man went to prison.

Mr Lem­mon said im­pris­on­ment was the only op­tion avail­able to him, sen­tenc­ing Moody to six months and one day in prison. His sen­tence was sus­pended for nine months.

Moody also re­ceived fur­ther li­cence dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tions and a $5000 fine for fail­ing to stop when di­rected by po­lice.